The Kitty-Cat Bird

It's the birthday in Boston, 1803, of the poet and essayist RALPH
WALDO EMERSON, who as a Unitarian minister in his mid-20s became
famous
for preaching sermons based on his own beliefs in self-reliance.

It was on this day in 1805 in Philadelphia that one of America's
first LABOR STRIKES was staged. A group of shoemakers struck for
higher
wages. Their employer appealed to the local judiciary, which in turn
charged
the strikers with criminal conspiracy and shut the strike down.

It's the birthday in Saginaw, Michigan, 1908, of poet THEODORE
ROETHKE,
author in 1953 of The Waking which won him the Pulitzer
Prize. As a
boy, he grew tending the plants and flowers in the greenhouse his
father and
uncle owned, and many of him poems relate to plants and nature.

It's the birthday in the logging town of Clatskanie, Oregon,
1938, of RAYMOND CARVER, the short-story writer of collections
Will
You
Please Be Quiet, Please? (1976), What We Talk About When We
Talk About Love (1981), and Cathedral (1984).

It's the birthday in 1949, St. John's, Antigua, in the West
Indies, of JAMAICA
KINCAID, author of the novels Annie John (1985),
Lucy (1990) and The Autobiography of My Mother
(1996), and short story collections.

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Although he has edited several anthologies of his favorite poems, O, What a Luxury: Verses Lyrical, Vulgar, Pathetic & Profound forges a new path for Garrison Keillor, as a poet of light verse.
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